Category Archives: Perinatal Mood Disorders

Postpartum Voice of the Week: Nuclear Winter

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Meet Selena. She blogs over at Because Motherhood Sucks. Selena submitted this story a few weeks ago and I have been dying to share it with you. I’ve been busy with sick kids among other things. I’m thrilled to finally share her words with you here as the Postpartum Voice of the Week. I hope you’ll find her words and story as powerful as I do.

 

I was no stranger to depression. I had my first experience with being hospitalized when I was 13 and was treated and released only to succumb again and again and again  throughout my teens and into adulthood.

I was on Prozac when I found out I was pregnant and for some reason this didn’t interest my obstetrician in the least. She basically told me to taper down if I wanted, but that she was completely comfortable with Prozac during pregnancy. I stayed on a low dosage and had a relatively uneventful pregnancy. I say “relatively” because although my health and the development of the baby were totally fine, I was exhausted, nauseous and miserable throughout. So much so that I remember having other mothers ask me if people were always touching my belly and I realized that NO ONE had EVER approached me to touch my belly. Of course, I suppose I wasn’t completely approachable.

I just ASSUMED I would experience Post-Partum Depression. I read up on it. I knew the symptoms. I decided that I didn’t care about the type of birth I had or whether or not I breastfed. The goal was always a natural birth and breastfeeding, but if it didn’t work out that way, I was not going to be disappointed or hard on myself because I didn’t want any added stressors to get depressed over. My mother would be there to help me for 5 weeks and could stay longer if I needed the help.

As far as I was concerned, I was perfectly okay with depression. It was an old friend who overstayed her welcome. It was annoying, but familiar. I would deal with it and move on. No problem.

Until it happened.

I woke up to the sound of the baby crying and was overwhelmed with a sense of utter terror and panic. I was alone in the house with her. Her father had gone back to work and my mother had left the day before. In the 5 weeks that my mother had been there, I had experienced a mild case of “baby blues” and gotten over it. I had no idea how I was going to handle this gigantic task that was ahead of me. I had to get her up and feed her and change her and dress her and find time to eat something myself and keep her calm and happy and get her to nap and on and on and on. And I would have to do this every day for the rest of my life.

My kid had severe colic. She screamed non-stop for about 12 hours a day. And the doctors just told me she’d grow out of it. I knew I couldn’t do it. I had made a terrible mistake. This was all my fault. What was I thinking when I assumed that I knew the first thing about being a mother? And what kind of a failure was I? My ONLY job in the whole world is to keep her comfortable and alive and she hates me. She never stops crying and she hardly sleeps. How could I do this?

I called her father. “Please come home.”

He told me he couldn’t come immediately but he would be home when he could. And when he came home he found a sleeping baby and a complete mess of a mommy. I couldn’t stop crying. I wanted to leave. I had made a terrible mistake. I hated this baby. She didn’t even like me.

He took over and I tried to sleep.

He stayed home for the next few days. I tried to sleep when I could but I heard her crying all the time. I got earplugs and ran a fan and I heard her screaming all day long. I got mad and wondered if he hadn’t left her alone, and I stomped out into the living room only to find a sleeping baby and daddy on the couch. I was hearing things.

I was terrified. I didn’t want to touch her. I decided that I was going crazy and would have to leave her for her own good so she should get used to her father taking care of her. I didn’t want to hold her. And yet, I wanted nothing more than to nuzzle her and love her and have her little head on my shoulder and hear her breathing in my ear. In the middle of the night, I would go get her to hold her and I would cry because I didn’t understand why I wanted to leave her so badly. But I did. I wanted to run.

I had an older friend come over to let me shower one day and the baby didn’t cry for her at all. For her, it was fun to hold the baby. It was easy and enjoyable. I marveled at the way she handled the baby and how she seemed to entertain her by doing nothing. I cried because it was so hard for me. I didn’t know what to do with a baby. I didn’t want to hold her and I didn’t know where to put her down and when I did, she just screamed anyway so I got a sling and she hated that. She hated her bassinet and she hated the floor and she hated the couch. I hated this kid.

Again, I called her father at work. “I think you can take a baby to the fire department and leave them, no questions asked. I am going to take her there, okay?” He told me that was crazy talk. He said the words, Post Partum Depression.

THIS was not depression. This was something else. I knew depression. I could handle depression. This was horror. This was terror. This was pure guilt and anger and infinite regret. This was like depression’s more evil, less apathetic twin. Depression was like a cold, heavy, wet blanket of fog. This was a nuclear winter.

My mother came back out to help. She took charge. She sent Ben back to work and got me an appointment with a doctor. She kept the baby busy and let me take a shower. She forced me to eat. My mother, not for the first time I am sure, saved my life.

After a few weeks of medication and 4 or 5 sessions of therapy, I was feeling a bit more steady. One morning, I was finished feeding the baby and talking to her on the bed and she looked up at me and smiled. I loved her right then. I knew without a doubt that I loved her and I never wanted to leave her. I told my mom it was safe for her to go home. I made some plans to go to a Post Partum group and began to reach out to my friends.

I would be lying if I said that I was okay right away. Being a stay at home mom requires a lot of planning your days and staying busy and it took me a really long time to find places to go to break up the day. I decided to work part time so that I had a life outside of the baby and that helped. I joined a Mommy Meet-Up group and that helped too. Mostly, I went easy on myself and realized that babies can cry and it is not an indication of my skills as a parent.

Three years later, the colic has stopped and the depression is under control but if I said I was completely thrilled with motherhood I would be lying. It has been a really difficult road for me and as a bit of a control freak, motherhood is a HUGE adjustment.

The thing that has helped me the most though, is being okay with the idea that I am simply NOT one of those women who believes motherhood is the most wonderful and thrilling experience that anyone can have. I started to blog about it and learned (mostly by anonymous comments) that there are many mothers out there who feel the same way. Motherhood is work. It is a job!

But I continue to work on it and try to find the happy moments among all the day to day drudgery. And when my three year old turns into a total monster and I have that moment of thinking how I wish I could run away, I remember how it was when I REALLY wanted to run away and that helps me to know that it’s going to be okay.

It will be okay.

……………………..

BIO:

Selena is a reader, a book person, and a self-affirmed pessimist. She lives in Upstate NY, has her hands full with her diva-esque preschooler and hopes to one day be able to write full time.

Find out more about her love of motherhood at Becausemotherhoodsucks.blogspot.com.

Whatever Wednesday: Hullo, Yellow

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Here in Georgia, we don’t rely on Punxsutawney Phil or even General Beauregard for Spring’s estimated arrival.

No, we like to wait for something a bit more obvious.

The thick coating of yellow which descends upon the entire state, rendering us all members of the Yellow club.

This dusty yellow coating is insipid. It sneaks its way into corners, into lungs, nasal passages, renders several thousand if not millions of eyes unusable for several hours each day.

Sure, we try to battle it off with various medications, some of us even with surgery. But yet, there it is, waiting for us, every morning.

There are a few things I have learned about the Yellow Season my past few years in Georgia:

1) Resistance is futile.

2) Don’t wash your car until it’s gone or let the rain do it for you.

3) If you don’t want something covered in pollen, bring it inside.

4) Breathing may actually be more harmful than helpful.

5) Drugs are your friend. Especially antihistamines. Especially antihistamines you can take every four hours along WITH one you can take for a 24 hour period.

6) Invest heavily in Kleenex.

7) Also buy eye drops.

8) And nasal spray. Preferably a 24 hour spray. Anefrin, I think I love you.

9) The bigger the sunglasses, the better. Takes others longer to see the allergy tears.

10) Windshield wiper fluid is pointless. Just drive. It’s powder.

11) Seriously consider buying a yellow car – your car will be the only “clean” looking car for weeks.

12) Shave the dog because if you don’t, the pollen gets trapped under her fur and she will eat herself to soothe the itch.

13) Pray for rain. Just not too hard. Remember the floods?

14) No one writes “Wash Me” on any cars during the Yellow Season. Revenge is too swift.

15) Misery loves company.

Do the thoughts ever go away?

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Lately, I’ve been getting this question  more often than any other question.

“Do the thoughts ever go away?”

A close second is “Does it ever get better?”

Every time I hear these questions, I tense up. I don’t know how to respond more often than not. So I take a deep breath and answer according to my experience. Thing is, not everyone’s experience’s are the same, a point I try to emphasize. With Postpartum, we all drag our own history to the table, our support access, our thoughts, our demons. We don’t all look the same in the mirror at the end of the day.

My youngest child is three years old.

The daughter I had my last Postpartum OCD experience with turns 5 on Monday.

I still have thoughts.

Not so much about harming the children. But “What if this or what if That” or “What if I…”

Many of these thoughts are remnants of my over-extended stay in Postpartumville.

And that’s the key to realizing that I am no longer there… the ability to recognize these thoughts as remnants, not recorded loops intensely playing over and over and over and over and over in my head.

Now? I can stop them before they even get past “What if….” most of the time.

Sometimes they sneak past the “What if…” and I get into what I call the “meat” of the thought. The event, the horror, the THING of which I should not be thinking. The thing which would make a good mom turn ghost white if I were to share this thought with her. This dark thought which, right now, is swirling about in my head, how do I sit next to another mom and try to act as if everything is okay? They spring into my head everywhere. At church, in the car, at home, outside, at the grocery store.. everywhere.

How do I make them stop?

I physically shake my head back and forth and say “NO!” outloud. Seriously. Sometimes I’ll just shake my head back and forth and tell myself NO silently if I were with others.

Some women aren’t able to stop things so easily as that though. Many women find it helpful to start listing state capitols, colors, states, the alphabet, or a list of any sort. Doing a challenging puzzle like Sudoku or a word search has helped some. It’s also interesting to note here that Tetris has been proven to be a valuable resource/therapy for soldiers with PTSD. It may also work for moms struggling with OCD and intrusive thoughts. Others may knit or read a book. But it’s important to really engage your mind and distract it from the negative thoughts flowing through it so if you choose something to distract you, be sure it fully engages your mind rather than just part of it.

It’s hard for me to tell a mom that the thoughts never completely go away. But they get easier to corral, easier to stop before they carry you down to the depths of hell as they once did. When you’re in that very dark place, the thoughts are like a swarm of flies. You can’t make them go away with just one swat. You have to cover yourself in all sorts of things to get them to dissipate. But once you’ve moved even further away, the thoughts get to be like the random housefly. If you ignore it, it’ll go elsewhere and no harm is done.

I sincerely hope this helps some of those who have been asking this question lately. It may not be what you wanted to hear but I sincerely hope you find some solace within my answer.

Take care of you, always.

 

Important questions don’t always have answers

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I’ve been teaching high school English for 5 years, and in those 5 years, I’ve been fortunate enough to build relationships with many of my students.  Many of these students often come back to me after they are no longer in my class to ask for help with assignments or to talk. It’s sometimes tough for some of them to talk to parents or other adults, so when they feel comfortable talking to me, I want them to know that I’m here and available should they need me. Occasionally, building this trust requires that I open up a little bit with them, and while I teach from my heart, freely sharing my life with my students, there are parts that I keep close to the chest.

Last week a student came to me during his lunch period, which also happens to be my lunch period, and asked if he could use my classroom computer to print off some things for one of his classes. This student went through a particularly rough patch of bad decisions last year, and I helped guide him as best I could during that time and in the time after. He knows I’m a safe adult. I won’t judge. I may criticize, but I’ll listen first.

I gave him my permission and he sat down at the computer on the other side of my desk. I was editing a post and having trouble finding the right words, grumbling and complaining and muttering under my breath because I just could not figure out why the coding was messing up. (After switching to WordPress, I now blame Blogger :) )

He asked what had me so irritated and I told him about the post I was writing and the coding issues and he goes “Mrs. W. You have a website??” And without thinking, I said “Yes, I write a blog.”

And immediately I panicked and thought about that teacher who recently lost her job for blogging about her job. And Dooce. And and and. Panic!

“C, please, please don’t tell anyone!”

“I won’t Mrs. W. What’s it about?”

And then I realized that I had two choices. I could make something up, or I could be honest with him. In light of our relationship, I chose the latter.

“Well, C, it’s about being a mom, mostly. But it’s also about my battle with postpartum depression.”

“Postpartum depression? You’re depressed? Really? Why’d you get that?”

I’ve taught my students that “why” is the most important question we can ever ask when reading a piece of literature. Or when questioning anything.

And yet, there I sat, unable to answer.

I mean, why me, indeed? Why anyone?

Thanks to modern medicine and some superior coping skills, I’ve been able to mask my battles, I guess. And he was in my classroom when I was in the thick of things. Or maybe it’s that I’m less affected and most myself when I’m in the classroom. I feel comfortable in my classroom. I know what I’m doing in my classroom. My classroom is ME.

Motherhood is the great unknown. It feels like constant turmoil and chaos and uncertainty and discomfort.

Or, at least it did.

I tried to explain to him as best I could that what I’d gone through was normal but was not the norm.  That millions of women have gone and are going through what I’ve gone through and have (and will) come out okay.

And that, as will most mental illnesses, you may never know who is suffering. And, as with most mental illnesses, we just don’t talk about them openly, even though we should.

I was happy to end the conversation with him by saying that I thought my war was coming to an end. That I have more good days than bad, and that I know that I’m stronger for having gone through this. That he didn’t need to worry about me.

That maybe that’s why this happened to me. To make me stronger. To make me better somehow. More compassionate toward others.

I don’t know. And for now? I’m learning to be okay with not knowing. I’m learning to accept this as something that has become a part of my life, for better AND for worse, and to use it for good. Maybe DOING is the answer.

Postpartum Voice of the Week: The Comparison Game – Facebook you suck

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Comparisons. Judgments. Look at her, she’s all put together and flawless. Nails perfect. Lipstick matches her shirt/dress. She’s got the latest stroller, designer clothes for her baby, not a hair out of place , everything looks fine. Family photos, family vacations. Not a single smudge of flour in her kitchen anywhere in her pictures. On Facebook.

LOOKS fine.

When people post photos, they tend to post the best, the brightest, the cleanest. They post photos which portray the life they are “supposed” to have. Now, some people may post pictures of their real lives. They may be honest with their portrayal of their lives. But for those of us who feel less than perfect, photos which appear even remotely perfect cut us to the bone.

They bring judgment into our head. Misconceptions. Lies. The cycle begins. We get lost in what should be instead of what IS in our own lives.

With the advent of social media, we get a closer peek into the lives of people we know (and even people we don’t) every day. Social media has gained a new foothold into loading us down with Mama Guilt.

Today’s Postpartum Voice from Carrying Me Through, shares a very powerful post about how these photos and ideals shared and portrayed (through Facebook specifically) have affected her as a Mom struggling with a Postpartum Mood Disorder.

Please go read it. You won’t regret it at all…. in fact, it may cause you to think in a new way about the effect of Social Media.